


My Missing Piece

by gelowo93



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff and Angst, M/M, References to Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-12
Updated: 2013-05-12
Packaged: 2017-12-11 16:00:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/800519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gelowo93/pseuds/gelowo93
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin and Arthur try to complete a jigsaw puzzle, and end up with rather important plans for the next weekend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Missing Piece

“Let me see the box.”

“You’ve been staring at that piece for ten minutes, and I’ve given you the box at least five times – _just put it back and move onto something else_.”

“I know, but I can’t work out where it goes. Are you sure it’s for this one?”

“I don’t mix up all the jigsaw pieces to annoy you.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me if you did.”

Merlin passed Arthur the lid of the jigsaw box. Arthur stared at it, a frown on his face, and then at the small piece of puzzle in his hand. He sat like that for a few moments while Merlin watched, amused. After a while, Merlin went back to sorting out the remaining pieces.

He wasn’t exactly sure whose idea it had been to do the jigsaw – Merlin remembered mentioning it the other day when Arthur had complained about there not being anything on TV, but Arthur had scoffed at the idea and Merlin had let it drop. Instead, they had gone on an impromptu date to the pub, returning home embarrassingly drunk for two men in their thirties, and finishing off the night with sex on the sofa when they realised they were too drunk to climb the stairs to their bedroom.

The next day, Arthur had asked Merlin where the jigsaw was, as they had lived together for three years without him ever knowing that they owned one. Merlin had returned home from work to find it on the coffee table in the living room, a post-it note stuck on the top reading _you have awful taste in jigsaws._

Neither of them had touched it since. Then, while Arthur had been on the phone to his father (“Yes, I’m fine… No, I haven’t spoken to Morgana – she tried to steal my money, that’s why!”) Merlin had picked up the box in a moment of childhood nostalgia. When Arthur returned, he deftly avoided any questions about how his father was by asking Merlin for the box, opening it, and starting to pick out pieces and seeing if they fit together, refusing to do things logically by first finding the pieces that go around the edge.

Three hours later, and they were probably about halfway done. Arthur had grumbled a lot to begin with, when he was picking up random pieces and seeming surprised when none of them fit with anything they had so far. Now, they had worked out a system where Merlin searched through the box for pieces that looked like he knew where they belonged, and passed them to Arthur with words like “window” “scarf” and “curtain”. When he took too long to find a piece that wasn’t just grey floor, Arthur would resort to choosing a piece at random again and hoping that it would fit.

“There aren’t even any spots on the picture,” Arthur exclaimed several minutes later. “It’s just a black dot in the middle of a load of beige.”

“Let’s see.”

Merlin put down the box and caught the piece that Arthur threw to him. It was just beige, with a black dot in the middle, but one edge had thin stripes of yellow and brown. Merlin turned it round in his hand.

“It’s the prince’s face,” he said, putting it in its place. Arthur huffed, and reached over to get another piece.

Merlin sighed and went back to finding pieces that Arthur could fit together.

After several similar tantrums, the last of which almost ended in Arthur knocking over the table, Merlin decided that ignoring the topic of Arthur’s conversation with his father hadn’t worked, and that was clearly the issue, because Arthur had been fine during dinner. It was time to raise the subject.

He put the box with the remaining few pieces in on the top of the jigsaw, catching Arthur by surprise, who had been about to put a piece in.

“What - ?” Arthur looked up at Merlin in confusion.

“What did your father say?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Arthur said, turning away to avoid Merlin’s gaze.

“It does, because you’ve been in a foul mood all night, and don’t try to tell me you just don’t like the jigsaw because you started it.”

Silence. Then, slowly, Arthur’s shoulders slumped, he leaned back on the sofa, and exhaled. Merlin got up and sat next to him, wrapping his arm around Arthur when he leaned into him.

“I love you,” said Merlin. He kissed Arthur on the temple. “Whatever it is you can tell me.”

“He’s trying to set me up.” Arthur looked up at him, and Merlin struggled to keep his face impassive. He knew Arthur’s father didn’t approve of him or their relationship, but this was a new low.

“Oh yeah? Who’s the lucky man? Do I know him? More importantly, do I need to be jealous?” Merlin tried to smile, but even he could tell how fake it was. It was a feeble attempt at humour, but Merlin had thought Arthur might at least smile. He didn’t.

“She’s the daughter of someone my father works with.”

_Oh_.

“She’s a she.”

“She’s a she. I’m to accompany her to some posh business dinner next week.”

Merlin squeezed Arthur tighter, thinking fast.

“Which day?”

“What does it matter? I’m going to have to go or my father will disown me. He still thinks I’m going through a phase for crying out loud, I can’t deal with this, I’m an adult I can make my own decisions on how I want to live my life but he insists –”

“Shh, it’s ok.” Merlin interrupted Arthur’s panicking with a kiss. “I’m thinking –”

“Oh dear,” Arthur chuckled faintly.

“Ha ha. Just tell me when this pretentious meal with your father and this unfortunate woman is.”

“Friday.”

Merlin didn’t even hesitate. “How do you fancy going away for the weekend?”

“You’ve got that super important meeting that weekend.” Arthur frowned.

“I can rearrange it. That’s the good thing about being your own boss.”

“You don’t have to do this for me, I’ll just go to this thing, put up with my father, pretend to enjoy this girl’s company and let her down gently.”

Arthur’s voice was resigned, and Merlin could tell that he had accepted that this would be what his life would always be like so long as his father was alive. And he would do this to please Uther because he was the only family Arthur had – Arthur had refused to talk to his half-sister Morgana for months – and because he felt he owed his father something. Merlin had never found out why Arthur felt like this, and he had a feeling it was between Arthur and his father and no one else would ever know, or needed to know. All Merlin knew was that whatever it was made Arthur unhappy, and seeing Arthur like that broke Merlin’s heart slightly. It made Merlin want to do everything in his power to make Arthur smile again.

“Will you enjoy going to this meal?”

“It might be alright… I don’t have to talk to my father, and whoever this girl is she might be okay.”

“Arthur.”

He sighed. “No, I won’t.”

“Will you enjoy a weekend away somewhere with me?”

“Of course I will.”

“Then we’re going away for the weekend.”

 “You’re serious?”

“Deadly,” grinned Merlin.

Arthur smashed his lips to Merlin’s, taking him by surprise. Merlin immediately relaxed into the kiss, pulling Arthur into his lap while Arthur awkwardly manoeuvred his hands to entwine his fingers in Merlin’s hair. Arthur pulled away and started kissing along Merlin’s jaw, making Merlin’s heart beat faster.

“So,” Merlin said, after several attempts at making words work, “where do you want to go? London? Edinburgh? Paris?”

“Not Paris,” Arthur said in between nibbling Merlin’s skin, “too cliché. And expensive, we don’t have the money to go away, I can just tell him we’re going away and instead we can not leave the house.”

The more Arthur licked and sucked and kissed at his neck, the more attractive that idea appeared to Merlin, but he had other ideas that would require going somewhere else.

“That sounds… good… but there is… something… I’d like to do that involves… going outside.”

Arthur stopped kissing Merlin’s neck to speak. “Hmm? Is this a kink I should know about?”

Merlin felt himself go red. “No, no, I –”

He stopped himself, suddenly hesitant. As soon as he had thought of it, it had seemed like the best idea, but now it came to actually saying the words out loud and telling Arthur, it was the worst idea in the world. They weren’t ready for this, it was a spur of the moment thing, he needed time to think about it, to work out how angry people would be.

“What is it?”

Glancing down, there was Arthur looking back up at him through his eyelashes. Merlin thought his heart skipped a beat, and his stomach felt like it was full of lead. They stared at each other for a moment, and – and –

Merlin loved him. There was no one else he could ever want, no one else that could even come close to how Arthur made him feel. Arthur was what made him whole, whenever they were apart it was as if there was a piece of him missing and Merlin couldn’t breathe properly until he spoke to Arthur, or saw him. When they were together, nothing else mattered.

Tearing his head away so that Arthur wouldn’t notice the tears forming in his eyes, Merlin looked at the jigsaw they had forgotten about. It was an old one he had had forever, of the Disney version of _The Prince and the Pauper_. Most of the pieces were battered and you couldn’t tell if they fit together properly because Merlin had completed and taken apart the puzzle so many times during his childhood. He wasn’t sure why he had snuck it into the house, for sentimental reasons probably; one of his first memories was of doing it with his father before he had died. It showed Pauper Mickey standing on the windowsill, offering his hand to Prince Mickey, who was taking it despite the cautious look on his face.

“Next weekend,” Merlin started, turning to look back at Arthur and unable to keep the nervous grin on his face, “how do you feel about getting married?”

Arthur’s face fell, and Merlin immediately regretted saying anything, regretted everything. He’d clearly overstepped the mark, Arthur wasn’t ready, he should have just kept quiet –

Arthur kissed him, tugging on Merlin’s lips with his own, forcing his tongue between them for a brief moment before pulling away.

“God, yes. Do we have to wait?”

Merlin laughed breathlessly. “We probably need to make some phone calls, and get the rings. And considering it’s part of the plan to get you away from some tart next week we should –”

“Oh, shut up, you think too much.”

Arthur kissed him again, and again, and it was bliss, and Merlin didn’t want this moment to end. He didn’t want to face reality tomorrow morning with homophobic almost father-in-laws, and awful work colleagues, and a best friend who was always noseying into his life and who also hated his boyfriend. At least he would be able to tell his mum, she’d be happy for him, and willing to see him get married.

A grin grew on Merlin’s face that he couldn’t prevent, and he broke the kiss so he could stare at Arthur, to memorise each freckle and premature wrinkle. He had to look away when his face started heating up again, embarrassed at the intensity with which Arthur was staring at him.

Merlin’s eyes fell on one of the jigsaw pieces that Arthur had left on the table, and smiled, recognising immediately where it fit.

He picked it up, and fit it into the empty slot where the Prince and the Pauper’s hands met.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading :) If anyone's curious, this is the picture I was imagining for the jigsaw, but with them holding hands http://dft.ba/-5F7C (not my image)


End file.
